The present invention is a molded plastic support usable as a premold for male contacts in an outlet plug. The support may be referred to as a bridge or male bridge since it holds male contacts in a spaced relationship.
Plugs for conventional 120 volt AC current electrical outlets usually include a pair of blades and a ground pin. The contacts are usually in a triangular relationship with a centered ground pin. In manufacture the blades and ground pin are usually crimped to individual conductor wires in a cable.
In the past wires for plugs were oftentimes machine crimped to contacts in automated systems. The wires of the cable were crimped, fed from a coil or roll on a stamping strip. The cord sets with wires crimped to the male blades and ground pin were then molded into plugs by being placed in a mold to be held in proper position.
Molding of plugs is complex. Three crimped male conductors have to be positioned in the mold for injection molding, it requires substantial labor, a substantial volume of plastic must be used in the molding and there is always the risk of wild strands.
By using the plastic support and assembly of the present invention, overmolding cycle time is reduced due to ease of loading the assembly into the mold. Overmolding compound requirement is reduced.
A less expensive overmolding compound can be used due to the plastic support retention characteristics. The plastic supports can be automatically assembled.
The plastic support allows for the crimping termination of all three contacts at once instead of the crimp termination of each of the blades and pin separately, in two different pieces of termination equipment.
The molding plastic, usually PVC, is a cost factor in the making of plugs. The labor of termination or crimping and engaging the crimped wire sets in a mold is expensive even though the crimping of the individual wires in the past was usually automated.